Some aircraft designs, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles, use complex wing or airfoil shapes for improved low-speed performance. These airfoils often exhibit severe stall properties that prevent the aircraft from operating over a full range of conditions. Further, these complex shapes are difficult to manufacture, have limited internal volume, and may not be conducive to attaching external components, such as trailing edge flaps.
A side view of a prior art airfoil 10 is illustrated in FIG. 1. The airfoil 10 has an upper surface 12 and a lower surface 14. In order to achieve good performance at low airspeeds, the airfoil 10 is characterized by a complex curvature that increases both structural weight and manufacturing complexity. The thin trailing edge 16 makes it difficult or impossible to integrate trailing edge flaps. The thin profile and high camber reduces interior volume and correspondingly reduces fuel storage capacity. The high camber also increases the difficulty of including the structural components necessary for integrating a deployable (folding) wing into an airframe.